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Hey, this is Kyle Idleman from Southeast Christian Church. And I want to thank you for listening to the message today as we open up the scriptures together. I pray that this message inspires you, challenges you, and is the right word at just the right time in your life. Enjoy the message.

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As you have a seat, turn the person next to you and say, good job. Say you made it to church on time. Change weekend. Good job. There's no extra points in heaven, but there's extra points for me. So I appreciate you. I read a news story just recently that came from Outer Banks in North Carolina. Outer Banks of barrier island that's kind of out a little ways in the ocean. And on the Outer Banks, if you don't know, there's just these dream multimillion dollar houses. They have wraparound porches, they have two story windows, they have million dollar views of the ocean. But something unique has been happening there. Over about the last six months, about 30 different houses have been swept away into the ocean. That when the tide comes in and the waves beat against the house, it just kind of washes it away. And even the next morning you'll see furniture from the house in the waves. I did kind of wonder, this guy filming that video, like, isn't he a little too close? I think his house is next. May not want to be there. But that was an illustration of what Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter seven. He says, hey, there's one guy, he built a house on a rock. And when winds came and rain beat against it, then it didn't fall because it was built on rock. But there's another builder who built his house on sand. And when the waves came and the wind and everything, he. It just got swept away. And here's what's true. You're in a storm right now. That is our culture attacking the Christian worldview every day. Our beliefs on marriage, gender, sexuality, work, even truth itself are under attack. And when you see a Christian begin to crack and lean, it's because they don't have the right foundation. Here's what's interesting to me about those Outer Banks homes is I thought when I first saw the clip that it was gonna be like a hurricane had come in or a series of hurricanes. And it wasn't, hadn't been any hurricanes that swept those 30 houses away. They're built on a barrier island. And what's true of any barrier island anyway in the world is that it erodes at a pace of about one foot per year. So it wasn't some giant one event. It was the slow erosion of the water over time. And I believe that metaphor is really helpful in understanding how Christian falls away as well. Because very rarely do you see a Christian throw his or her worldview out the window because of one cataclysmic event. Rather, it's the slow, endless beating down from our culture. What we need is a strong foundation. So I'm really excited today that we're launching a series to go through the book of Genesis. In the Bible, the word Genesis means beginnings. Genesis describes the beginning of the world, the beginning of humanity, the beginning of faith, the beginning promises of Jesus. And I love Genesis for many reasons. One of them is cause Genesis is wild. Like you have the destruction of the world. There's incest and slavery, there's family betrayal. The most bizarre story, in my opinion is when a guy falls in love with a woman. The father says, okay, you have my permission to marry her. The there's a wedding ceremony and then in the dark of night, he takes her into his tent to consummate their marriage. But when he wakes up the next morning in the light, he realizes it's not the woman, it's her sister. He runs off in a rage to the dad and he goes, oh, yeah, I just wanted to get rid of her first. Now you can marry her sister as well. And the guy just says, okay, it's sister wives in Genesis. There's revenge, there's loves, there's bitterness, there's faithfulness. But what you see most of all is God introducing himself. It's his power, it's his grace, it's his providence, it's his faithfulness and redemption. Today we're going to study Genesis chapter one. And I say study because today's going to be a bit more of a heady sermon. Next week we're going to come back to Genesis 1 and it's going to be more of a message for the heart. But Genesis 1 sets the foundation for so much of the Christian worldview. Genesis 1 is the reason we believe marriage is between one man and one woman for one lifetime. Genesis 1 is the reason we believe in the value of work. That if you're capable of working and just refuse to, then you shouldn't eat. Genesis 1 is the reason we believe in two genders, male and female. We don't agree with James Talarico that there are six genders. Genesis 1 is the reason we believe we have a divine responsibility to care for our world. Not because of made up science, not because of a political agenda, but Simply because Genesis 1 says God gave us this world as a gift and said, you take care of it. We have a responsibility to do that. Genesis 1 is the reason we believe all humans have worth, no matter if they have a disability or not. Genesis 1 is the reason Christians don't buy into a postmodern worldview that believes my feelings are my truth or that even the phrase my truth can exist. The reason we believe this is the reason we believe there's objective truth that's unchanging and good for us. Genesis 1 is the reason we don't believe in a Marxist worldview that says the problem is systems of power. Because Genesis teaches that God creates us as individuals and treats us as such. Our series on Genesis is going to last about 20 weeks. I kind of wish we had 20 weeks just on Genesis chapter one. We're not going to do that. In fact, we're not even going to really get into the nitty gritty of all those applications I just listed. Instead, we're going to really look at the macro idea of Genesis Chapter one that is the foundation of all those things I just listed and then come away with kind of one application point for us today. So here's what today is and is not. Today is not an argument over how to interpret Genesis Chapter one. Bible believing Christians believe different things about the timing of the universe. In fact, I didn't know this when I was doing my study for this message. I discovered there are actually 10 different ways Bible believing Christians interpret Genesis 1. We're not gonna argue about that today because they're all gonna be in heaven and we're gonna ask Jesus one day who's right. Today is an overview of the chapter to see what does Genesis 1 tell us. Now, some people dismiss any serious claims of the Bible because of Genesis 1. And they'll say that the Bible isn't a science textbook. While it's not a science textbook, I have yet to read anything the Scriptures teach that has been proven as untrue by observable science. However, the primary goal of the Bible is to teach us about God and his plan for us. So today we're gonna learn three things about God and one thing for us. It may be helpful, actually for you to get out your Bible, even if it's on your phone. Today I'm gonna skip around a lot in Genesis 1, and it may just be helpful for you to follow along and see the broader context. We're gonna start with one of the most important verses in all the Scriptures. In fact, I know you just sat down, but at every campus I'm gonna ask you to stand back up for the reading of God's Word. It's been said that if you can believe the first verse of the Bible, you have no problem believing the rest. In many ways, our faith hinges. Go ahead and put the verse up on this one sentence. And so I want us to say this sentence out loud together. One, two, three, go. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Let's pray. Almighty God, who created the heavens and the earth. We need you. We need the belief of this verse and the implications of this verse to penetrate our hearts, minds and souls. Father, our country gets in trouble when we don't believe this verse. Families fall apart when we don't live in light of this verse. Our lives become a mess when we don't live out the implications of this verse. So will you encourage us, humble us, convict us, comfort us through your word Today we need all of the grace, all of the truth you have to offer, open our hearts and minds to you right now. Amen. You can be seated as you do, grab that booklet you got on the way in today, Turn to week one of this series and we're gonna have some fill in the blanks for you. This verse, theologians have a term they've over the centuries for what this describes and it's Latin phrase ex nihilo and it means from nothing. The Hebrew word bara used for create here means that God in power and in his divinity created the universe from nothing. No other so called holy book makes that claim that God created the universe from nothing. Here's what I want you to write down. God is powerful. About 100 years ago, the prevailing thought of the cosmos of the time was something called the steady state theory. It stated that the universe had just always been and always will be, that it had no beginning, it existed to eternity past and it has no end. It will exist to eternity future. And you can see why atheists love that idea. If our telescope said the universe always existed, then Genesis 1 couldn't be true. But then somebody looked through a telescope and noticed something weird. It seemed that the galaxies were moving away from us every direction we looked because they had a red shift in their light towards the red end of the rainbow. Here's what that means. If you think of an ambulance driving by you, as soon as it passes you, the siren sound, although it's the same coming from the truck, sounds different to you. It's because the sound waves get stretched out. When these astronomers looked in their telescopes, they said these galaxies, their light waves Are stretched out, they're moving away from us. They said it'd be like if you had a balloon and each galaxy was a dot on it and you blew up the balloon, Every dot would be moving away from every other dot. So scientists started scratching their heads. If everything's moving away from everything else, that means that once upon a time, everything was together. There must have been a beginning. Now, a bunch of people loved that idea, but a bunch of them hated it because the beginning sounds too much like in the beginning. So they said, well, fine, that can't be true. Because if there was a beginning, as you say, then there would be this leftover background radiation Scattered throughout the universe. We would detect it in many different ways, and we don't see that. So that theory can't be true. The universe didn't have a beginning. But in 1964, two radio guys working at Bell labs in New Jersey had a giant horn shaped antenna. And they weren't looking for the beginnings of the universe. They were trying to do something else. But when they pointed it in the sky, there was this big hiss. It was messing up what they were doing. So he pointed at another direction, same hiss. Another direction, same hiss. And they said, well, maybe our equipment's malfunctioning. And they checked their equipment. Their equipment was fine. Same hiss. Then they said, well, maybe all that pigeon poop on our antenna is messing up our equipment. So they cleaned that off. They drove away the pigeons, same hiss. And then it hit them. This was exactly the leftover radiation that that theory of a universe with the beginning would have. They won a Nobel prize for it. They had just stumbled onto the echo of the very first moment of creation. Then, in 1992, the final nail on the coffin happened. Two astrophysicists running the COBE satellite found tiny ripples in that same background radiation. It was the last piece of information that proved the universe has a beginning. It made front page news on the London Times for five straight days. Astrophysicist George Smoot, who was on that project, not a Christian, won a Nobel prize for the project, said it was, quote, like looking at the face of God. Stephen Hawking called it the discovery of the century, if not of all time. Then he later said, all the evidence seems to indicate that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning. Think on this. Your atheist college professor believes the universe had a beginning. That physics teacher in high school that talks stuff about religion so much and looks down on it believes the universe had a beginning. Anyone who trusts anything of science or Math believes that the universe had a beginning. I believe the greatest scientific evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is the same Bible that tells us Jesus rose from the grave. Also says the universe was created ex nihilo from nothing by God. It had a beginning point in time, and the biggest scientific discoveries of the last hundred years prove that that is true. There is nothing that has ever been discovered in science that contradicts Genesis 1, verse 1. And there's discovery after discovery after discovery from astrophysics that points to Genesis 1:1 as being true. Christians call this the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It simply goes like this. If the universe had a beginning, it had a beginner. By the way, both Hinduism and Buddhism teach as a core doctrine of their religions that the SETI state theory that the universe goes on forever. But Genesis 1:1 as pro driven by science proves those religions are false. And here's why that's such a big deal. If you can believe the first verse of the Bible, you can believe anything that follows. If God created the sea and everything in them, he can create a fish that can swallow a man. If God created atoms and the law of chemistry, he can turn water into wine. If God created gravity and vast oceans, he can part the seas to have his people walk through on dry land. If God created DNA and the reproductive system, he can have a virgin give birth. If God created the laws of biology and thermodynamics, he can have his son walk out of the grave. If you believe the first verse of the Bible, you can believe anything that follows. I know some of you who are young are fascinated by the sciences and I would encourage you devote yourself to that field for two reasons. One, we need Christian leaders in the sciences. And two, when you study, go to school, when you work one day in that field, it will just be going to work an act of worship for you as it increases your all of God. Hebrews 11:3. By faith, and I would add and telescopes, we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command. That what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Skip ahead to verse 11. Then God said, let the land sprout with vegetation every sort of seed bearing plant, trees that grow seed bearing fruit. The seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came. And this is what happened. Verse 20. Then God said, let the water swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind. Verse 24. Then God said, let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind. Livestock. Small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals. And that's what happened. God creates fish, plants, birds, mammals. Here's what jumps out at me. God's creative. God is creative. Think of the ways that God didn't need to be creative, but was. Think of the peacock. God could have created the peacock with plain brown feathers that would have worked for camouflage and flying around, but instead he crafted this breathtaking shimmering fan of brilliant blues, greens and golds with perfect eye spots arranged in precise symmetry in thin film layers. Think of the butterfly. A butterfly needs wings to fly and escape danger. But God created beauty. The morpho butterfly's electric blue has no dye or pigment. God crafted microscopic scales that would refract the light so that we see a beautiful blue. Think of the snowflake. Each one begins as a simple water vapor freezing in the air. Yet God makes infinite variety, with each snowflake having perfect symmetry. No two are identical, each as one person described. It is a delicate masterpiece of branching fractals and lace like arms. Think of the northern lights. The sky could be dark and empty at night, but God pushes charged particles to collide with our atmosphere in a cosmic light show of green, purple and pink. Completely unnecessary, yet stunningly beautiful. Think of the bumpy snailfish. Now, I gotta admit, this one's kinda ugly alright. But here's what's unique about this. Every so often you'll hear about a new species discovered last calendar year. Some scientists off the coast of California sent a camera 10,000ft below sea level and they found this new species and named it the bumpy snailfish. But think of what this means. It means thousands of years ago, when God was creating the universe ex nihilo, he realized, hey, thousands of years from now, some humans are gonna develop some technology. They're gonna go down the bottom of ocean and see what's there. I'm gonna create something now that that most of humans won't see and nobody will see for thousands of years. So when they get that camera down there, something new's waiting for them. God took time to create beauty. God took time to make things different. God is creative. One application of this is I believe you are creative. In his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball, author Gordon Mackenzie talks about what it's like to be an artist in a big corporation. He worked for Hallmark and he talks about at one point going into schools to talk about artistry and creativity. And when he speaks to a kindergarten class and says, how many of you all are creative? Everybody raises their hand. They're like bouncing out of their chairs to make sure they're seen they're creative. When he speaks to a class of third graders, how many of you are creative? About half of them raise their hands. When he speaks to a sixth grade group and says, how many of you are creative? A few bold, timid souls will raise their hand because everyone was taught somewhere along the way, you're not creative. But I believe part of what it means to be made in God's image is you are creative. Now you may say, well, I don't paint with watercolors, I don't craft pottery, I don't draw with charcoal. But I would push back and say, well, it takes creativity to write the right code that makes the website function. It takes creativity to plan and cook a good meal. It takes creativity to manage finances well. It takes creativity to buy thoughtful presents. It takes creativity to figure out, what exercises does this patient coming in for physical therapy need. You're creative. And because God's creative also, that means your story will be unique. If he doesn't make two snowflakes the same, he's not gonna make two stories the same. It is so tempting to compare to other people. I want the good things that happen to them to happen to me. I want the way God answered their prayer requests, quick and good to be the way he answers my prayer requests. I want their calling to be my calling. But God's creative. Ephesians 2:10 says, you are God's masterpiece. A master artist never makes two works the same, which means you don't need to get discouraged because their story isn't your story. Just look at the butterfly and be reminded, God is creative. He's writing something new for you. Look at how those last verses we just read were fulfilled. Go Back to day three in verse 12, the land produced vegetation, all sorts of seed bearing plants, and trees with seed bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw it was good. Day 5 so God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird, each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw it was good. Day 6 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw it was good. Here's how I'd sum up another character of God we see in Genesis chapter one. Write this down. God is kind. God is kind. Think of some of the ways God didn't just create the world, but went out of his way to make it enjoyable for you. God didn't just create light, he created 7 million colors. So at sunset you enjoy pink and orange. You see the green of a field of grass, the blue of the deep ocean. God could have made all land the same, but he gives us mighty mountains for adventure. Tall waterfalls to bring renewal. Rainforests full of mystery. God didn't have to create scent, but he gives you the smell of pine as you hike a mountain trail. The scent of fresh bread being baked, flowers from somebody who loves you. Instead of full grown dogs and cats, he gives us puppies and kittens. Instead of leaves simply falling, he turns them red and gold. Instead of a static temperature, he gifted us seasons. Instead of a blank sky, he paints it with stars. Instead of bland food, he gives us his gifts from heaven. So skyline chili, Big Red soda and Krispy Kreme donuts. There's a theological phrase, common grace. And the idea of common grace is that God gives us 1000 gifts that we don't deserve. It's what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5 when he says he gives his sunlight to the evil and the good. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. What is that? It's just common grace for everybody. And the point is, God is kind. I believe there are times when you encounter God's kindness in creation just for you. A couple weeks ago, I did a short retreat, personal retreat in the Rocky Mountains. I went up to a friend's cabin by myself for a day. And this is remote in the middle of nowhere. You drive over five miles on a dirt road. Once you get off the paved road, there is no cell service, there is no WI fi. It was me, my Bible. That's it. And on my drive in, I prayed, God, I would love to see some wildlife today. And I had seen wildlife at this cabin on a couple other personal retreats. One time I saw a moose. When I was there one time, I was staring out the big two story windows and several coyotes just came and stared at me. When I told the owner, he said, I wish you'd shot him. I said, I didn't know I was allowed to. That sounds pretty fun, actually. I was sitting there with the fire with my Bible, just looking out the window all day and no wildlife. Came, went on a hike, no wildlife. It was time to go. So I got my car, packed my stuff up, started driving down that dirt road. I turned right by this meadow and right in front of me were probably 200 elk, maybe two dozen horses, just having a snack, minding Their own business. And maybe I read too much in this. Sometimes that's possible. But in that moment, as I was driving, I felt like God was saying, hey, I see you. It was a reminder of what Jesus says. The birds, don't worry. God takes care of them. As a reminder, God's gonna take care of me, and he's gonna take care of you. If you have a worry in your life, that relationship, that financial thing, the unknown future, I believe a reason God created the universe the way he did is to give you gentle reminders that only you'll see that he's gotcha. It's common grace, meaning when you look at the vast ocean, you can be reminded he's big enough to handle your unknowns. When you taste a mango, you're reminded he gives you blessings even as you suffer. When you enjoy sex the way God intended, you're reminded that even while family is difficult, he wants you to enjoy pleasure. Whatever stirs your soul in creation, let it remind you that God's kind. All this leads to the biggest point of the chapter, verse 26. Then God said, let us make human beings in our image to be like us. So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God, he created them. Male and female. He created them. Then God looked over all he had made and saw that it was very good. We are created as the hallmark of God's creation. The point is this. I am loved. And when you really let that sink in, it changes everything. See, scientists have this term they use to describe the universe. They say Earth is in the Goldilocks position, meaning it's almost as if there are a hundred different dials. And any one of them, if tuned a little differently, would make life impossible on this planet. But every one of them is tuned just perfectly. And one of the smartest physicists who ever lived was a guy named Freeman Dyson. He worked at the Institute for Advanced Study at Pristine. And it's where the smartest minds on the planet, people like Albert Einstein, come to solve the biggest questions. And Dyson wasn't a Christian. He liked the ethics of Jesus, did not believe in the resurrection. But after spending his whole life staring into the universe, here's what he finally said. The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe, in some sense, must have known we were coming. The smartest people on the planet look through their telescopes and say, it seems like everything here is for us. In fact, do you know the biggest argument that atheist, astrophysicists have against what we're talking about. The biggest argument they have, you can look this up, is that we live in a multiverse, like the thing that Spider man encounters. And you see in the superhero movies where they go in all the different universe. The best argument atheists have is they say, well, this is just one of me. And they don't have any science at all to back this up. It's just a philosophical wish. Cause they don't want God to exist. But God seems to have created the entire universe for us. Why? Because you're loved. And the beautiful thing is Jesus was in on it from the beginning. John 1 In the beginning was the Word Jesus. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him. Colossians 1. Everything was created through him and for him. Ephesians 1. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ. And Revelation 13 calls him the lamb who is slaughtered before the creation of the world. Here's what this means. God didn't just make a nice world and then say, oh, I better send Jesus. God in his triune perfection created a stage called this universe called Planet Earth. And when the right time came, he sent his son, born of a woman, just for you. And here's what it really means. If you're not a believer, literally everything in the history of the universe was created so you would be faced with the opportunity to accept the grace and truth of Jesus. One writer points out that while every other ancient creation story is full of blood, violence and Warring gods, Genesis 1 is calm and peaceful. No one dies, no one gets hurt. In fact, Christopher Watkin studied this and said, it is through grace that the Christian is born again. But it is also through grace that the universe is born in the first place. Look at our lessons again. God is powerful. God is creative. God is kind. I am loved. When I sum all this up, it reminds me of an experience I had when my kids were really little, when they would just start walking and getting really active all the time. They would get on the first step and they would jump and have me catch them and they giggle a lot and say, do it again, Daddy. Do it again, Daddy. And then as they got bigger, they get brave and go up to the second step. And then as they got a little bigger, they get really brave and go the third, maybe even the fourth step and they just giggle. Do it again, Daddy. Do it again, Daddy. I remember one time when my wife had finished folding some laundry and she said, hey, Grab that laundry, take it upstairs to our bedroom and our staircase. Kind of turned a lot and I grabbed the laundry. And when I made the last turn to get upstairs, my daughter was standing at the top of the stairs and she says, catch me, Daddy. And I said, no. So you know what she did? She jumped. So you know what I did? I moved out of the way. Look, crashing that wall like she deserved. No, I about fell over, broke my back, caught her. I was in pain, and she's just giggling. Think on this. She was so familiar with her father's power that dwarfed her own. She was so confident in her father's love, it never occurred that he'd drop her. Following Jesus takes faith. And I know there's something in your life right now where it is difficult for you to believe. Me too. I believe what God wants to remind you of today through Genesis 1 is he's powerful. He's creative in how he writes your story. He's kind in what he gives you, so you can trust that you are loved. And the next time you worry or doubt or are frustrated, maybe the answer is to get in the part of God's creation that stirs your soul, to give you a reset so you can take joy in knowing that he will catch you. I want to read Genesis 1:1 together again. I want to read it two different times. The first time, I want you to think of the thing in your life or the thing in someone's life close to you where it's going to demand God's power in this situation. I want you to read this verse this time with that power and authority. Let's read it together. 1, 2, 3, go. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I want to read it one more time, and I want you to think of the situation in your life or the life of someone you love that needs the tenderness and gentleness of God. And I want you to read this verse again out loud with that tenderness and gentleness. One, two, three, go. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Arguably the most important verse in the Bible. If you believe this, you can believe anything that follows. And what this ultimately means because Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world is simply this. It's going to be okay. Your grief gonna be okay. The thing in the news that gets you so worked up because you care gonna be okay. Your pain gonna be okay. The thing you want to control but you can't. It's gonna be okay because you worship the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. Let's pray together. Father, in heaven, we need your power. We need your creativity because we don't see a way forward. We need your kindness that leads us to repentance. Father, thank you that in a thousand ways every single day your creation screams to us that I am loved and God, may we be people who initiate getting around that part of your creation that stirs our soul so that we're reminded of who you are. Thank you that it's going to be okay. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.